You want to believe the best but …
Ed Morrissey’s got a post up at Hot Air in which he praises Obama for issuing an executive order that rolls back executive privilege, making it more “transparent” to the people. This order was done supposedly in the name of “transparency.”
Look, I want to believe that Obama’s sincere about transparency but his rhetoric rarely matches up with reality, especially on issues like transparency and “open government.” Remember how hard it was to get the records of his time serving on Chicago Annenberg Challenge board with Bill Ayers? How about the fact that you could find next to no paperwork on his time served in the Ill. state Senate, outside of his voting record? How about the fact that all last year he refused to release the names of contributors to his campaign that had given less than $200? Of course, it wasn’t required but it was something McCain did to show he was serious about transparency, while Obama did not.
Today we’re also hearing about Obama’s new “rules” on lobbyists and how he is “cracking down.” Am I supposed to be impressed by this? I’m not, and hopefully no one who has paid attention to his duplicity on lobbyists is either.
Let’s also not forget how he campaigned against the same ol’ same ol’ DC tactics, yet so many of the people he’s pulled into his admnistration are seasoned Beltway types known for playing the games he supposedly decries.
And how about how BlagoGate was handled? To refresh, Team Obama launched an internal “investigation” that was conducted by … Obama legal advisor Greg Craig.
The thing to remember about Obama is that he said a lot of things during his campaign that in reality amounted to “just words.” It’s going to take more than “just words” for our new President to make me believe he’s serious about transparency and open government. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if – as some of Hot Air’s commenters suggested – Obama’s executive order on executive privilege was nothing more than him throwing a meaty bone to his constituency who hopes to be able to find out “The Truth” about the Bush administration’s alleged plans to turn this nation into a dictatorial theocracy. Either that, or he’s just given an excuse for our nation’s future chief execs to not document everything in writing. Great. I love Ed’s blogging, but on this one, I think he’s mistaken. Obama’s proven himself to be a master of symbolic gestures that in the short run turn out to be empty rhetoric.
Well, one good thing to come out of the last day or so of ObamaNuze? Mr. Transparency’s wish to keep his Blackberry has been granted. And the reactions of those on the far left who slammed Gov. Palin for keeping a Blackberry? Crickets chirping.
SSDD.